New Chapter for Detroit Auto Makers

Leaders of the world's major auto makers gathering in Detroit this week for the North American International Auto Show will find a far more hospitable climate than they've experienced during the past several years.

Detroit's weather promises to be chilly and dank as ever. But the U.S. auto industry is enjoying blue skies. Sales in 2013 recovered nearly all the ground lost during the Great Recession in 2009, as demand for luxury cars and highly profitable trucks and sport-utility vehicles boomed and gasoline prices drifted...